Four steps, in this order. Separate what can be separated. Stop being the source of new borrowing in your own name. Work out which of your own debts are priority debts, because most people pay the wrong one first. Then get free regulated advice before you agree to anything. None of this requires you to cut them off.
The feeling first, briefly
Money is where supporters feel most ashamed of themselves. You are frightened about someone's life and you are also frightened about the account, and the second one feels petty next to the first.
It is not petty. Your rent is a real thing, your children's shoes are a real thing, and a household that runs out of money helps nobody in it. Minding about money is not the beginning of giving up on a person.
Orford's description of what happens to family members is a list of ordinary responses under pressure, including feeling "annoyed and resentful". Money is where most of that resentment collects, because it is the one loss you can count.
Step one: separate what can be separated
Not punishment. Basic housekeeping that most households never do until something goes wrong.
- **Keep an account that is yours.** If everything runs through a joint account, one person's bad night is everyone's bad month.
- **Take stored card details off shared devices,** and out of shared browsers and app stores. Saved cards are the difference between an urge and a transaction.
- **Move anything portable.** Cash, jewellery, cards, the passport. This feels like an accusation and you are allowed to do it quietly anyway.
- **Change passwords that have drifted,** particularly on banking and on any account with a payment method attached.
- **Keep a written record** of what has gone and when. Not to build a case. Because your own memory of this is unreliable under stress, and you will want the facts later.
Step two: stop being the source of new borrowing
This is the one that protects the next two years rather than this week.
Do not take out new borrowing in your own name on someone else's behalf, and be careful about guaranteeing anything. Once a debt is in your name it is yours, regardless of who spent it and regardless of what happens next.
If you want to help without handing over cash, buy the specific thing. Food, a phone top-up, a taxi to an appointment. Cash converts and everyone involved knows it.
We are not going to tell you whether you are liable for a partner's debts, because that depends on facts we cannot see and it is a question for a free adviser rather than a page. Citizens Advice and StepChange both answer it without charging you.
Step three: know which of your own debts come first
Almost nobody gets this right, and getting it wrong is expensive.
Citizens Advice puts it plainly: "'Priority debts' are debts that can cause you particularly serious problems if you don't do anything about them", and they get dealt with first. Priority debts include rent and mortgage arrears, council tax, energy, court fines and unpaid tax.
Credit cards, overdrafts and buy now pay later are **non-priority**. That is not permission to ignore them. It means the letter that frightens you most is often not the bill that can take your home, and people routinely pay the aggressive letter while the council tax quietly escalates.
If your own household is in trouble, Breathing Space exists in England and Wales, gives up to 60 days, and is applied for through a debt adviser rather than directly: "To apply for the 'Breathing Space' scheme, you need to talk to a debt adviser. They will submit an application on your behalf." It is a pause, not a write-off.
Step four: free, regulated advice
Pay nobody for debt advice. There is a large commercial industry selling what charities give away.
- **StepChange**, **0800 138 1111**, Monday to Friday 8am to 8pm.
- **Citizens Advice**, locally and online, including the priority debts guidance above.
- **National Gambling Helpline**, **0808 802 0133**, 24 hours a day, if gambling is the shape of this. Money and gambling are the same conversation, and the UK's gambling guideline lists "methods to limit access to money" among the things that belong in a plan.
If they are the one in debt, the adviser needs to be talking to them. You can sit in the room. You cannot be the client for someone else's debt.
The drug debt owed to a person
This is the version that gets posted on UK family forums at 2am and it does not have a clean answer.
What we can say. If anyone is being threatened, that is a police matter, and 999 if it is happening now. Paying once rarely closes the account, and everyone in this situation has heard that and paid anyway. Nobody writing this can weigh the risk in your specific situation, and any page that tells you confidently whether to pay is making it up.
What we would not do is decide it alone at midnight. Tell one other adult before you move money.
When money is not a money problem
There is a line here that matters more than any of the above.
If money is being taken from you, if you are made to account for what you spend, if you have no access to your own income or you are being pushed into debt in your own name, that is economic abuse and it is named in UK law. The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 lists "economic abuse" among the behaviours that count, alongside "controlling or coercive behaviour", and says it "does not matter whether the behaviour consists of a single incident or a course of conduct".
- **National Domestic Abuse Helpline**, run by Refuge: **0808 2000 247**, free, 24 hours a day.
- **Men's Advice Line**: **0808 8010 327**, Monday to Friday 10am to 5pm.
- **Galop**, for LGBT+ people: **0800 999 5428**, Monday and Tuesday 9.15am to 8pm, Wednesday to Friday 9.15am to 4.30pm, closed at weekends.
[When it is not addiction, it is abuse](/guides/supporters/when-it-is-not-addiction-it-is-abuse) goes through the difference. You do not have to have decided anything to ring.
Saying it without a row
Say what you are doing, once, in daylight, in the first person. "I have opened an account in my name and my wages go into it. I am still here and I am still in this with you."
Do not present a spreadsheet. Do not attach a deadline. A statement about your own money needs no agreement, which is precisely what makes it hold. [Boundaries that are not punishments](/guides/supporters/boundaries-that-are-not-punishments) has the general form of this, and [the enabling question, honestly](/guides/supporters/the-enabling-question-honestly) is for the individual decisions that follow.
Common questions
**Should I pay off their debt?** Nobody can answer that for you, and be suspicious of anyone who does it quickly. Run it through what it actually pays for, what happens without it, and what it costs you. Then, whichever way you go, get free advice before the money moves.
**Am I liable for my partner's debts?** It depends on facts specific to you, so this is a question for a free adviser rather than an article. StepChange and Citizens Advice will both answer it at no cost.
**They keep taking cash. Do I call the police?** That is your decision and it is not one to make in the middle of an argument. If you are frightened of them rather than for them, ring the domestic abuse helpline first, because that changes what safe options look like.
**Is protecting my money the same as giving up on them?** No. A supporter who runs out of money runs out of everything else shortly afterwards. Solvency is what lets you still be standing when they are ready.
**What about the children's money?** Move it and put it somewhere separate, today, before it becomes a decision you have to make in an emergency.
Sources
- [Citizens Advice, work out which debts to deal with first](https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/debt-and-money/help-with-debt/dealing-with-your-debts/work-out-which-debts-to-deal-with-first/). What priority debts are and why they come first.
- [GOV.UK, Breathing Space](https://www.gov.uk/options-for-paying-off-your-debts/breathing-space). Up to 60 days, England and Wales, applied for through a debt adviser.
- [Domestic Abuse Act 2021, section 1](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2021/17/section/1). Economic abuse and coercive control in UK law.
- [NICE NG248, gambling-related harms](https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng248/chapter/recommendations). Limiting access to money as part of a plan.
